Vijayawada: Poll campaign buzz missing on AP roads

Vijayawada : Though just 21 days are left for the election campaign to end in Andhra Pradesh, the roads and streets are still silent. The noise appears to be more in the social media. The usual cacophony that is generally seen during elections is missing. If one travels on the roads of the Andhra Pradesh, it appears as if this is one state where there are no elections.

There are no banners, hardly any campaign vehicle is seen moving around. Most of the candidates are making maximum use of the social media. Some have created their own social media teams while some are hiring platforms on social media for campaign purposes.

Only at a few places, one finds candidates taking up door-to-door campaign with few followers before 11 am and after 4 pm due to extreme heat conditions.

Most of the time, it is the top leadership like Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy who is seen addressing public meetings titled ‘Memantha Siddham’ and road shows introducing the local candidates or the TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu addressing not less than two public meetings a day, ‘Praja Galam,’ or Pawan Kalyan’s Varahi Vijaya Bheri that make to the front pages in newspapers.

The reason for this, the candidates rue, is high cost that is involved in poll campaign. They need to hire the vehicles, campaign rathams, rent office buildings, pay money to the cadre, and meet their food and other requirements. Poll campaign has become very expensive and it is beyond the reach of any candidate who does not have strong financial backing, some party leaders told The Hans India.

Hence, they said they were reserving all their resources to take up a high voltage campaign during the last 15 days. “Let the process of nominations be over, we will seriously hit the roads,” they said.